Sapir in JTA: Z3 Project Presents Bret Stephens

You are the editor of Sapir, a new quarterly journal of Jewish ideas published by the Maimonides Fund. How’s that going, and what’s the theme of the next one?

It’s now a permanent thing. We started with the idea of four issues on four big topics. We’ve done social justice, power, and continuity, and the theme of the next one is aspiration. The fifth issue will probably be about Zionism. We’ve had a good response. A lot of people have said to us: We needed this.

We’re trying to do something that’s a little bit different from other Jewish publications. We are trying to stress the prescriptive end of issues — the ‘What do we do about this’ side of things. It’s not meant to be simply another catalogue of Jewish lament. It’s meant to be a handbook for Jewish action. Second, we are not looking for a mass audience. We are looking for an influential audience. We are interested in getting this into the hands of people who can make things happen, in finding ways to bring together thought leaders with doers in the philanthropic and organized Jewish world.

I’m not trying to put together a right-wing journal or stamp it with my own brand of politics. You will find voices like Benny Morris, Anshel Pfeffer and others who are unmistakably on the left in our pages, and I’m very proud of that fact. We want this to be a conversation, and you can’t have a conversation where everyone is singing from the same song sheet.

Read the full article, part of a series sponsored by the Z3 2021 Futures Workshop, on JTA’s website.